As Bank Holidays follow hot on each others' heels, so do the car boot sales on West Malvern's playing fields! The next will take place on May Day (Monday), from 10am-1pm, with all the usual features.

Looking further ahead, organisers of the Proms on the Pitch event planned for June 24 are asking any owners of vintage cars in the village who are willing to bring them to the playing fields for display to contact Richard Hammond (01684 893951), who is also the contact to reserve pitches at the car boot sale (£5 per car).

West Malvern's Vital Spark choir will be making no fewer than three appearances at the Upton Folk Festival on Sunday. First in the parish church at 10.45am, then in a workshop at 2pm in the Memorial Hall, also be the venue for a concert at 5pm.

The old hawthorn hedge at the top of Joyner's Meadow (above Camp Hill), which was saved from removal by the Conservators a year or two back in response to local request, missed out on flowering last year. Hopefully it will soon once again be the great mass of white blossom, which has been one of the local sights in May for many years past.

Meanwhile, the Conservators have replanted at its foot the hedge designed to replace it in future years. Most of the young hawthorn plants put in previously died, so this time the new slips, protected by tree guards, are of holly and blackthorn, thought to be more tolerant of the shade of the older trees overhead.